Star Trek (2009)
'' |image= |imagewidth=300px |imagecaption=Kirk watches the Enterprise being built |series= |production= |producer(s)= |story= |script=Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman |director=J.J. Abrams |imdbref=tt0796366 |guests= |previous_production=Star Trek Nemesis |next_production=Star Trek Into Darkness |film=11 |release=6 April 2009 |certificate= |previous_release=(Movies) Star Trek Nemesis (Overall) These Are the Voyages... |next_release=Star Trek Into Darkness |story_date(s)=2233.04-2258.42 (2233/2240s/2255/2258/2387) |previous_story= |next_story=Star Trek Into Darkness }} Summary Stardate 2233.04: The starship USS Kelvin investigates an anomaly and comes under attack by a huge vessel, commanded by a Romulan called Nero. Nero demands Captain Robau of the Kelvin to come aboard his ship, the Narada. The Romulan wants to know the whereabouts of Ambassador Spock, but Robau can't tell Nero anything except that he is now in the 23rd century, and that there is no Ambassador Spock. Nero kills Robau and continues his attack on the Kelvin. George Kirk is now in command, and while everyone else of the crew, including his pregnant wife, is being evacuated, Kirk sets a collision course for the Narada. Just seconds before the impact George Kirk learns that he is the father of a son he wants to be named Jim. Several years later in Iowa, young James T. Kirk gets into a brawl with Academy cadets, and he meets Captain Christopher Pike, a friend of his late father. Pike tells Kirk that he should do something useful in his life and join Starfleet Academy. On the shuttle to San Francisco Kirk befriends the physician Leonard McCoy. Meanwhile on Vulcan, Spock has grown up as the son of Sarek and the human mother Amanda. He is bullied by his fellow students. Yet, the Vulcan Academy of Science accepts Spock, which he declines in order to join Starfleet. On the Academy, James Kirk modifies the no-win Kobayashi Maru scenario in a way that he succeeds. In a hearing at the Academy, Kirk faces his prosecutor: Spock, who programmed the test. But upon a distress call from Vulcan all the cadets are activated and quickly assigned to vessels. McCoy sneaks Kirk aboard the USS Enterprise by faking the symptoms of a disease that he as a doctor is up to treat no matter where. The fleet sets course for Vulcan. Once aboard, Kirk learns the reason for the distress call, and with his knowledge about the fate of the Kelvin and something he picked up listening to communications officer Uhura, he concludes that it is a trap. He urges Captain Pike to raise the shields before dropping out of warp. At Vulcan, the fleet has been destroyed by the Narada, and the Enterprise takes damage too. A drilling platform extends from the Narada, from where a high-energy beam tears open the surface of the planet. Pike takes a shuttle to the Narada and leaves Spock in command, while Kirk, Sulu and Engineer Olson dive down to the platform to blow it up. Olson, who was carrying the explosives, misses the platform. After battling the Romulan guards, Kirk and Sulu disable the platform with phaser blasts. But it is too late. Nero drops a vessel of "Red Matter" into the drill hole, initiating the formation of a black hole inside the planet. Spock only manages to save his father and some members of the High Council with Ensign Chekov's help at the transporter console. His mother dies. The planet implodes, killing six billion inhabitants. There are only 10,000 survivors. Nero warps away with Pike as a hostage, apparently heading for Earth. Kirk wants to follow them, but Spock insists on regrouping with the fleet. When Kirk continues to cause him trouble, Spock drops him on an escape pod that lands on Delta Vega. On this planet Kirk meets Ambassador Spock from the 24th century, who has been marooned there by Nero, just to witness the destruction of Vulcan. Nero blames Spock for the destruction of Romulus by the Hobus supernova in the 24th century. Spock was on a mission to eliminate the supernova using "Red Matter". But he came too late, and Romulus was destroyed. Now both ships have been hurled back to the 23rd century, only that Spock arrived 25 years later - 25 years that Nero had to wait after the attack on the Kelvin to finally take revenge. The timeline of the past 25 years is a new one, and already the attack on the Kelvin should not have happened. Spock and Kirk walk to a Federation outpost, where they get acquainted with Montgomery Scott. Spock reveals a formula that would allow Kirk and Scott to beam over to the Enterprise at warp. They succeed but are soon apprehended by the ship's security. Kirk provokes an irate reaction from Spock, upon which the Vulcan concedes that he is unable to stay in command. Kirk orders a course for Earth, and with Spock he devises a plan to stop Nero from destroying Earth. Young Spock manages to get hold of Spock Prime's ship aboard the Narada and blows up the drilling tether. Meanwhile Kirk finds Captain Pike aboard the enemy ship. Time is pressing, since young Spock has released the "Red Matter". A singularity forms next to the Narada and begins to devour the ship. After beaming out Kirk, Pike and Spock, the Enterprise barely escapes, as Scotty uses the explosion of the jettisoned warp core to propel the ship. On Earth, Spock Prime advises his younger self to remain in Starfleet, while he himself will take care of what is left of the Vulcans in a new colony. Cadet Kirk is promoted to captain and remains in command of the Enterprise, with Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov among his crew. Errors and Explanations Internet Movie Database Audio/visual unsynchronised # During Spock and Kirk's fight on the bridge, Spock slams Kirk into one of the bridge consoles, which makes a cracking sound like it had been broken by Kirk's impact. When the console is shown again, there is no damage. The sound could be due to internal damage. Character error # In the opening scene after Kirk's wife has given birth to Jim, Chris Hemsworth's Australian accent slips through when he says the line, "Tell me about him". Maybe George Kirk has some Australian ancestry. # Kirk's statement to the crew that Spock had resigned his commission was incorrect. He was not giving up his rank of Commander, he was stepping down as Captain of the ship. At the end when he is talking to Spock Prime about leaving Starfleet, then he would have resigned his commission. Kirk is referring to Spock's commission as ship commander. Continuity # The Starfleet logo, the distinctive "arrow-head" that featured on all the teasers, was originally intended by the production designers of the original Star Trek series to be the "assignment patch" for crew on the Enterprise only. This was reflected on-screen by the use of different patches for different ships or posts. The use of the arrowhead insignia on the Kelvin, before Nero arrives in the past, is therefore a continuity error since history had not yet been altered. The varied insignia shown in The Original Series could have been an experiment. # After the Narada comes through the black hole the next shot shows the bridge of the Kelvin and the red alert klaxon is playing. Next, the helmsman says "I have a reading, they've locked weapons on us." The captain then announces red alert even though the klaxon is already playing. The klaxon may have been automatically triggered, and could have prompted the Captain to declare Red Alert. # In the opening battle sequence, the computer indicates that weapons are offline but when the crew person gets sucked out through a hull breach soon after, they bang into a firing phaser bank. Either the computer indications are partly inaccurate, or the phaser bank came back online after the computer indication was shown. # When Spock is beamed away from Spock Prime's ship at the end of the movie he is in a sitting position, but when he materializes on the transporter pad he is in a standing position. This may be a standard safety measure, to prevent people falling over. # When Kirk helps Pike off the torture table on the Narada, he supports Pike on his left side. But when they're beamed aboard Enterprise, Pike is standing on Kirk's right. They could have switched for some reason. Factual errors # Saturn's moon Titan orbits in the plane of the rings, but when the Enterprise rises out of the atmosphere of Titan, the view looks down on the rings. Titan's orbit could have shifted for some reason. Incorrectly regarded as goofs # Chekov's Russian accent is sometimes perceived to have a major flaw in it. In Russian, there is no "W" sound, but there is a very, very common "V" sound (although heavily rounded with shades of "w"). As a result of this, his labored way of transforming his V's into W's might seem incorrect. When speaking English, native Russian speakers will sometimes transpose V's and W's, e.g. "Ve are wery happy to be here". (A similar phenomenon is seen in speakers of Asian languages that possess only either "L" or "R", when speaking in English will often transpose them: "really" becomes "leary".) # When Uhura walks in on Kirk and Gaila, she says, "I've been working on solar systems." While we refer to our own star system as "The Solar System", it is not in the least bit incorrect to refer to any other star system as "a solar system". The difference is in the use of "The" as opposed to "A". A "solar system" is simply a planetary system that orbits a star and so Uhura is quite correct in her wording. # Mr. Scott says he had a transporter mishap with "Admiral Archer's prized beagle". The series Star Trek: Enterprise with Archer was set around 100 years before the events of the movie. The Scotty scene takes place in 2258. Enterprise was set in 2151-2155 meaning Archer would be around 140-150 years old. Star Trek writer Roberto Orci went on record to clear up the issue: "Admiral Archer is a reference to the Archer we all know and love, from the TV series and yes he would be over 100, which is a likely life expectancy in a futuristic space faring race of humans" (as depicted by McCoy in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Encounter at Farpoint.) # The "Enterprise" is referred to as Star Fleet's new flagship. While in current naval tradition a flagship requires an admiral on board, Starfleet has been established as having a premier starship referred to as a "flagship." In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise 1701-D was referred to as the Flagship of the Federation. # When Kirk convinces Pike and Spock that they are heading into a trap as they warp towards Vulcan, Kirk refers to '47 Klingon Warbirds destroyed by Romulans.' Though "Warbirds" are usually Romulan vessels within the Star Trek canon, the same name has been used for Klingon vessels even in the original timeline, e.g. in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. # The female Vulcan Minister is smiling as she stands up at Spock's entrance hearing for the Science Academy. This is not necessarily an emotional response - smiling can be used to convey approval of a situation (as well as dozens of other meanings), therefore the minister may simply be smiling to signify support of Spock. # According to the writers, the new Stardate system has the year and the decimal points indicate the day (i.e. Stardate 2258.42 is February 11, 2258). However, at the beginning of the film, Captain Robau says the Stardate is "twenty-two thirty-three zero four". This does not fit into the new system, as he only gives one placeholder zero instead of two or none (it should have been Stardate 2233.4). The Stardate system is essentially separating the two numbers. 2233.0000004 would have been correct. But if you want to hold them to a standard, then every Stardate should be four digits, then three, meaning every Stardate in the movie is wrong. This means the Captain was correct. # In Star Trek, Captain Kirk mentions a Federation/Romulan War many years previously. The war was conducted through starship battles and the treaty for it was negotiated via subspace radio, so Romulans and Federation citizens never saw each other prior to that point in time. This means that the Federation knew about the Romulans and general background information about their ships (what radio frequencies were used, power signatures, etc.) long before the scene with the USS Kelvin in the movie which resulted in altering later history. # In the fight on the drill's platform, which is at an extremely high altitude, Kirk and Sulu remove their helmets. On Earth, humans would find it very difficult to breathe at that height without supplemental oxygen; in Trek mythology, Vulcan's atmosphere is thinner than Earth's. It was an acceptable practice, when visiting or residing on Vulcan, to receive an injection of a Tri-ox compound to assist in breathing (Star Trek: Amok Time). Knowing that they would be fighting on Vulcan at a high altitude, it seems logical that the away team would be given a similar injection (considering McCoy's penchant for injecting Kirk on the fly), though it was not shown on screen. # During Chekov's announcement to the crew during the voyage to Vulcan, he leans over to his left (towards Sulu) when talking about the "lightning storm in space." When Kirk replays the footage of this, Chekov shifts and leans slightly to his right (what would be away from Sulu, if from the viewpoint of the view screen) during this line. The replay of Chekov is reversed, as shown by the location of Captain Pike's knee behind Chekov. In the live version, Pike's knee is correctly on the audience's right. In the replay, Pike's black pant leg is seen on the left. Thus the replay of the video is correct. # Uhura claims to be able to speak three dialects of Romulan. It has been established that relations between the Romulans and the Federation have never been friendly and that the only contact was to negotiate a peace. However, there's no reason to presume that their unfriendliness precluded either side learning the other's language somehow. There would be an immense tactical, political, and diplomatic advantage to figuring it out. It is quite reasonable that, despite the conflict, one side would learn the other's language. In Star Trek: The Enterprise Incident, while Romulan Commander Liliana Charvanek is speaking with Captain Kirk, she remarks, "Your language has always been most difficult for me, Captain," implying that they are not employing the Universal Translator, which must mean that she has studied and mastered English. # When Spock Prime is contacted by Nero following the destruction of Romulus, Nero's appearance is not the appearance of a normal Romulan from that time line. Instead Nero already has the facial tattoos and shaved head consistent with the Romulan mourning ritual, although Nero and his crew should not have performed this ritual until after the attack on the Kelvin - in which the Romulan appearance should also be original time-line appearance. The events that take place in the original time line circa 2387 that are described in Spock Prime's mind meld take place over the course of several months and are told out of order in the mind meld - an effort by the filmmakers to simplify the exposition for a general audience. This effort to simplify the exposition leads these type of confusions. Romulus was actually destroyed while Spock Prime was on Vulcan trying to convince the Vulcan government of the threat and that his plan to collapse the super nova with Red Matter would work (and that the whole supernova thing wasn't part of a Romulan/Federation Cold War ploy). After Romulus was destroyed, the Jellyfish ship and the plan was set in motion. The collapse of the supernova happened weeks after the destruction of Romulus (during which time Nero and his crew got the mourning tattoos, had his ship refitted to become the monster ship with the Borg technology that is seen in the film, battled 24th century Starfleet and Klingon fleets, etc.). Another thing that is unclear in the film is that after collapsing the supernova, Ambassador Spock created a second smaller black hole that he modified into a temporal vortex through which he intended to travel to go back in time a few months and collapse the Hobus star before it ever went nova and thus save Romulus; however, before his small ship was pulled into the temporal vortex by its gravity, Nero arrived and his ship being of larger mass was pulled in first. Nero's ship not having been a part of Ambassador Spock's calculations completely comprised the intended effect and Nero traveled back in time 154 years and Ambassador Spock ended up traveling back 129 years (into the altered time-line). # Chekov obtained transporter lock on Kirk and Sulu because the transponders in their communicators helped him lock onto their biosignal, which was moving at a predictable velocity. However, losing transporter lock on Spock's mother was a different story. Whether from the lack of communicators or Vulcan's unique geology, transporter lock on the Science Council was only possible above ground. Unlike with Kirk and Sulu, her fall was a complete surprise, and her biosignal was masked by interference from the cliff walls and the debris engulfing her body. In addition, while Amanda clearly demonstrated that people can move within the field of a transport in progress, she literally fell out of the transport-in-progress's field when the cliff collapsed. She was already being molecularly disassembled for transport. Compare this to Kirk and Sulu's transport; in that instance, Kirk and Sulu were already in motion and Chekov was already working on maintaining the lock while Kirk and Sulu were transported aboard. # In the final "Spock on Spock" scene, you can see the obvious height difference between the two. Young Spock should be the same height as old Spock. Vulcan biology is not fully understood and this could simply be a natural physical change. Additionally, this is consistent with human physiology. Old Spock is 120 years older than young Spock so it is natural that young Spock is taller. As humans age, their spines become more curved and the cartilage in between the vertebrae become more compacted; hence they tend to be shorter. This height difference can be quite considerable so a handful of inches is really not unusual. In addition, it should also be noted that both the actors, Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto, both stand the exact same height in real life, 6'1". So the height difference on-screen could be intentional, to show the aging of Older Spock. # When Nero is accused of genocide after destroying Vulcan, he responds that he is trying to prevent it. He knows he has gone back in time, and he has the red matter, which he knows can destroy the supernova. He also knows from his own actions that it's possible to change the time line he is from. If he truly wants to prevent genocide, why does he not go to the star and eliminate it decades before it can destroy Romulus? This is in part because Nero also states that he wishes to eliminate the Federation since it is the primary nemesis of Romulus. Nero may have decided to destroy the Federation before saving his home world, since the supernova is not scheduled to take place for a hundred years. (It should also be noted that Nero is not exactly a picture of mental health, after having witnessed the destruction of his entire planet, travelling through a black hole and spending upwards of 25 years in prison, plotting revenge. Therefore any logical flaws in what he says can always just be put down to his tenuous grip on sanity.) Plot holes # When Kirk and crew are devising their plan, Spock says he can board the Narada and "steal back" the black hole device. At this time, only Kirk knew that the device was in fact stolen. This is probably an educated guess on Spock's part. # When Spock travels 129 years into the past via temporal black hole, he should have arrived in the past of THAT time-line, not in the alternate time-line created by Nero's actions. Thus, Nero never would have captured Spock Prime, stolen the Red Matter, and used it to destroy Vulcan. Instead, he would have been stuck in an alternate past that he had created while Spock traveled along the prime time-line back to an unaltered point in history. Wrong! Nero arrived in the past before Spock did, giving him enough time to alter history. # Once Nero realizes that he has time traveled into the past, rather than attacking the Kelvin, he should simply have warned Starfleet of the impending supernova so that work on the red matter device could be expedited (especially now that they HAVE red matter on board and no longer need to invent it all over again) to prevent the tragedy from happening the first time, thus saving his planet and all involved by getting the red matter device there on time, or relocating the population to another planet long before the supernova. The entire movie becomes redundant the moment Nero is told what the star date is. Unlikely - Nero's anger at the failure of Spock, a member of a Federation race, to save his homeworld would cloud his judgement, resulting in him despising the Federation enough to make him seek their destruction. # When Nero activates the drill over San Francisco, we see Starfleet Academy and many cadets going outside to look at the drill. However, it was established earlier in the film that all cadets were ordered to ships in orbit. Therefore, there shouldn't have been any cadets at Starfleet Academy at that moment. Some cadets may have subsequently recieved orders to remain at the Academy, to form a reserve. Nit Central # Cyber (Cybermortis) on Friday, May 08, 2009 - 8:44 am: Nero's ship is identified as a mining ship. First does the design of this ship appear A; Even remotely Romulan or B; Suited in any way to storing large amounts of bulk cargo? Second what is a mining ship doing with that much fire power? Even disregarding the 'advanced' nature of the weapons Nero's ship appears to be capable of firing more torpedo's in a single volley that the (presumably contemporary) USS Enterprise E can. All these issues could be due to the modification Nero made to the ship as part of his revenge plot. # The firepower of Nemo's ship is inconsistent throughout the film. The first volley more or less cripples the USS Kelvin even with her shields up (in fact someone can be heard asking if the shields are even up). A couple of minutes later the already damaged Kelvin is able to survive being the only target of Nero's ship for a good five minutes or more - long enough for George Kirk to evacuate the ship, his wife to give birth, them to name their son and for the Kelvin to ram Nero's ship. Nero's weapons may have been low on power and/or recharging. # Scotty says that he will eject the warp core in the singular. All the subsequent footage shows the Enterprise ejecting at least six pods/cores from the ship. These probably work together as a single unit. # Why did Spock feel the need to carry that much red matter on his ship? We see a huge red ball of the stuff - only a drop of which was needed to create a black hole. A Small flask of the stuff should have been more than enough - and probably far safer. Perhaps he felt it was more logical to keep it all close at hand. # Planets consist of a solid core, surrounded by superheated liquid rock under considerable pressure and covered with a thin solid crust of rock. While you could burn through the crust the result would be that the pressured mantle would well up - basically you'd create a volcano. What you could not do is then drill through the mantle - its a liquid, it will move to fill any 'hole' and not leave a nice path down to the planets core. Maybe the drill uses an energy field to hold back the mantle. # Why did the Romulan's not evacuate the planet when they realised what was going to happen? Why stay put and place all your hopes in a wild plan that may or may not work? If they had enough time to get Spock's ship, come up with the plan and put everything together they had enough time to evacuate most of the population - which would have been the smart option regardless of if Spocks plan was going to work or not. There was no indication that Spock's plan prevented any attempts to evacuate the planet. You know how arrogant Romulans can be! # By Kyle (BSG mod) (Kpowderly) on Friday, May 08, 2009 - 3:18 pm: The Enterprise has a WINDSHEILD?!? OK, a heads-up display overlay is nice, but still, a couple centimeters of glass or transparent aluminum between the command crew and hard vacuum is hardly a good design idea. Not when a large HD viewscreen would suffice. And when you're traveling at even a small percentage of the speed of light, you're still traveling too fast to see anything through the window. It's probably reinforced with an energy field. Fandom # Unknown user - March 4 2019. Planets around stars that can end up in a supernova are uninhabitable. The reason for this is that, in order to explode in a supernova, the star has to be very massive. Smaller stars usually end their life by shedding their hulls creating a planetary nebula. The supernova kind of stars burn their fuel within < 1 billion years. In such a short period of time a planet would still be a glowing molten piece of rock, absolutely uninhabitable. Hence, no Romulans. In summary, either there should be no supernova or the planet cannot support life. I do not see any way around this. They could at least ask a scientific advisor. Perhaps the way the supernova was triggered could explain any anomalies - I believe it was triggered by the Iconians. Notes Category:The Movies Category:JJ Abrams Reality